10 Tips For Problogging On Tumblr

Despite its popularity as a personal diary, the “half breed” known as Tumblr can be used as a powerful, yet inexpensive tool for blogging pros as well as newbie’s (which is geek for “new comers”).

Unfortunately Tumblr’s emphasis on simplicity often masks its true potential, which might explain why many bloggers overlook Tumblr as a decent choice and instead choose Blogger, WordPress or even Typepad.

For those of you who desire to become Tumblr Tycoons without having to worry about CAPTCHA’s, plugins or monthly fees, here are ten (10!) tips for problogging on Tumblr (without having to touch a single line of template code).

1) BYOD: Buy Your Own Domain

If you want to be taken seriously as a blogging pro, then you are going to have to purchase a domain.

Unfortunately you can not purchase a domain from within Tumblr (a standard feature in WordPress and Blogger), although the blog platform does make it easy to add a custom domain by requiring you to only change the “A Record” within your domain registry.

2) Feedburner Is Your Friend

Just like Blogger, Tumblr allows you to swap out your default blog feed and replace it with Feedburner instead (which will make it easier to analyze your subscribers and generate revenue via ads).

After creating a Feedburner account, you can add the service to your Tumblr blog by clicking on the “Customize” link in your Dashboard, then clicking on the “Services” tab near the top and pasting your FeedBurner link in the appropriate field.

3) Google Analytics For The Win!

Tumblr makes it dead simple to insert Google Analytics in your blog, and unless you fear the Google Borg or enjoy tinkering with code, you should seriously consider inserting this within your blog.

This feature is located underneath the “Appearance” tab, and make sure you include the “UA” letters in the appropriate field (example: UA-XXXXXXX-X) to ensure that your stats are tracked accurately.

4) Appearance Is (Almost) Everything

Although there are plenty of free and premium Tumblr themes available, you should only seek out Tumblr themes that include one or two sidebars (especially if you are going to insert ads upon your blog).

While this probably means you may have to purchase a premium theme, it will help your Tumblr blog stand out from the masses (as well as make your site more presentable to your readers).

5) Use Pages Please!

Many Tumblr lovers do not realize that you can create an about, contact, etc. page for your Tumblr blog, which will make it easier for your current and future readers to find out more info about you.

Tumblr has even created a separate tab called “Pages” which allows you to insert HTML, links, and even images. They even include a spell checker for those of us who are not gifted in the art of grammar.

6) Disqus For The Rest Of Us

Believe it or not, Tumblr does include native comments, although unfortunately it’s a rather closed system when compared to other blog platforms.

To make up for its lack of implementation, Tumblr does allow users to easily insert Disqus into their blogs. This is done by simply clicking on the “Appearance” tab and typing in one’s Disqus shortname.

Adding Disqus will give readers who are not apart of the Tumblr tribe the ability to express their thoughts regarding your posts.

7) Go Social!

Tumblr allows you to have your posts automatically published upon Twitter and Facebook without having to install any plugins or utilize a third party service.

Located underneath the “Services” tab, this feature will help you increase your audience to those who have yet to join the Tumblr faith.

8) Primary Directive?

While increasing your exposure outside the Tumblr universe is a good idea, you should also seek to promote your site from within Tumblr as well.

Aside from likes, reblogs and comments, the fastest way to gain attention (and followers) is to be listed within the Tumblr directory.

Unless you have a large number of recommendations from friends, you should consider paying the $9 fee in order to gain more exposure from within the Tumblr jungle.

9) Tag Thy Posts!

Just like any other blog platform, Tumblr does utilize tags, which can help organize your posts if your blog covers a wide range of topics.

Tags also help make your blog easier to find within the Tumblr universe, which can help potential users find your blog and become loyal readers.

10) Embrace The Mobileverse

For those who enjoy podcasting, you can even “call in” a post your blog (as well as text/email images, videos and audio files), and Tumblr will post your media online for all your fans to see.

Any other tips?

While professional bloggers could always mimic Tumblr’s features upon WordPress (or even Typepad), Tumblr tycoons may prefer to use the original platform instead (especially since the platform doesn’t charge users for uploading video or a monthly fee).

For those of you who use Tumblr (whether in addition to your blog or as a replacement of your blog), what other tips would you recommend for Tumblr users?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Update: Corrected numerical error within the article.

Author: Darnell Clayton

Darnell Clayton is a geek who discovered blogging long before he heard of the word “blog” (he called them “web journals” then). When he is not tweeting, Facebooking, or blogging about space and his beloved iPhone, he enjoys running, reading and describing himself in third person.

Blogging & telecommuting jobs

Comments

I do try to use Tumblr, but it seems a little confusing for my tastes, neverthelses, i have a couple of RSS feeds automatically importing to it, which provides a brilliant way to get links and traffic to some of my other websites!

Sweet post to maximize tumblr! I had a client that loved the simplicity and mobile uses of tumblr but wanted a more professional blog/website/cms. I ended up finding a plugin that pulls tumblr posts (rss feed) directly into wordpress as posts under a specified category. It works great, but the plugin has a few little glitches that are manageable. You can see the blog section live at: followthereids.com/blog

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, how dare the US govt rant on about BP, when a few yeqrs earlier a US company managed to kilee 15,000 inidans in Bhopal and what did the boss do he legged it out of India and the US has stopped all efforts to extradite hime. Talk about hypocritical,

Wow. I’ve been trying to get into the directory for a while now and have been unsuccessful. These are great tips. Unfortunately, when I go to pay to get into the directory Tumblr tells me my blog isn’t eligible to do so. I’m guessing this has something to do with my lack of unique visitors? Eh, I’ll keep trying other ways…Thanks for posting! 🙂

You covered all of the bases on the features I incorporate into my website (published using tumblr). However, I don’t use Feed Burner but will do so now after reading your article. One thing I would like to see Tumblr build into their blogging system is an SEO Platform. Tumblr really lacks in this department, particularly compared to WordPress. Outside traffic–meaning individuals who don’t know you from Adam–and pings are heavily determined by good search engine optimization.

Having just started using Tumblr and planning for it to be my main blog, I quickly noticed that there is a meaning to the whole micro-blogging thing with the keyword being “micro”. One of my first posts may be longer than the average Tumblr post so I’m working on setting up a regular blog on another service and then use the Tumblr blog as my light version. The more meatier posts will be on the regular blog and the shorter posts will be on my Tumblr blog.

I store my audio and video files that I post on Tumblr in a Dropbox. This gives me full control over how the files are presented, so I only have to conform to my chosen theme, or hack it if necessary, rather than Tumblr’s flash-based audio and video players that give me absolutely no control over how they are presented. If I want to use a flash player, I have that choice, as well as full control over its implementation. I can even use HTML5 to show my videos and play my audio files directly in the browser, which is far easier to implement on newer browsers and provides much better accessibility for sight impaired visitors. In my case, I creat a standard “text” post that includes HTML5 to display a basic player that fits into my post area and provide direct download links for everyone whose browser doesn’t support it.

The main problem with this approach is that the free Dropbox is limited to 2 GB, but coming from another “blogging” platform that is limited to 2 GB, I currently don’t see that as a major disadvantage yet. However, if it does become a concern in the future, there are other similar services that will allow me to store files as well.

Tumblr has its features that made me jump over to the platform on my personal blog. First they don’t have an upload limit, and they have really clean free themes. WordPress themes are not the greatest looking themes, unless u pay for some of the Tumblr like ones. I still use wordpress for my mainstream technology blog, because Tumblr does not allow for the features i need there. If tumblr became a opensource project, I would for sure use it on my own servers.

This is really great features of tumblr. The look of tumblr is great than normal blogger template. Such kind of features like post from your mobile will really appeal you to use the tumblr. And good part is you don’t need any kind of html or programming knowledge for this.

You stated: “Primary Directive?
While increasing your exposure outside the Tumblr universe is a good idea, you should also seek to promote your site from within Tumblr as well.
Aside from likes, reblogs and comments, the fastest way to gain attention (and followers) is to be listed within the Tumblr directory.
Unless you have a large number of recommendations from friends, you should consider paying the $9 fee in order to gain more exposure from within the Tumblr jungle.”
Im curious… where can I find a link to sign up to be listed?

First off thanks for all the great tips they are super insightful! Second i am an artist i draw and make music. I would like to have a blog that i can setup a small online store to sell cd’s ,stickers, clothes… Nothing crazy just a handful of items . Does anybody have any recommendations for something like this? Best ways to setup and the best/easiest service to go through?

There is no need of any special technical skills to use these themes and you can easily and quickly post your images, quotes, videos, slide show, text or your photos. There is also an option to remove the original domain name and use a custom domain name. The Tumblr themes could be especially very useful for the internet marketers or the social media marketers as they are very unique and are steadily growing.

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